Respectability
Honesty describes a social class that emerged in the late Middle Ages and early modern times .
It represented the urban upper class , which stood out from the other social classes through professional ( patricians , large merchants and scholars), property (wealth) and birth class ( nobility ) criteria. A distinction must be made between honorable families and individual honors acquired through education, economic or other merits. Also Ausburger (pole Burger), ministerial and even free farmers could initially rise to respectability. Factors for the achievement of the respectability were the degree of wealth, the willingness to donate (towards the city), services to the city, the clothing or appointment in an honorary office , awarding of the imperial coat of arms etc. But while offspring from patrician and noble families automatically in the respectability were born into it, there was fierce competition among the sons of citizens who had achieved individual respectability to enter this elite circle through education, relationships or economic achievement. And even among the honorable there were hierarchies: not all honorable citizens were "advisable".
Württemberg honorability
The Württemberg respectability had a special quality because the needle in the Duchy of Württemberg by turning to the Protestantism of Duke Ulrich virtually disappeared in 1534, and civil institutions in the Württemberg countryside came in his place.
From 1538 on, the “landscape” consisted only of Protestant members. After the majority of Catholic pastors refused to convert and left the country, it was no longer possible to fill all pastoral positions. For this reason, the state set up an education system based on the three levels of Latin school - monastery school - Evangelical monastery in Tübingen and which provided for the next generation of evangelical clergy.
The passed state examination , which every Württemberg graduate of the monastery school was allowed to take, entitles, after successful completion, to admission and further education to the Tübingen monastery, to study Evangelical Lutheran theology. After completing the theology studies, the ascent to "honorable" opened up for the graduates. This possibility of receiving a profound education was generally sought by parents, as the duchy made it possible for every child in Württemberg to receive education free of charge, thus enabling even the poorest children in the country to gain respectability through excellent education.
Other meanings
With the development of modern caste system the designation learned " honorable " an expansion and the urban patricians soon formed their own social class between the "common" state and the "noble" or noble status . As a so-called “ money nobility ”, it was still present in the 19th century in the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg , Bremen and Lübeck and was mentioned, for example, in 1901 in Thomas Mann's family novel Buddenbrooks: Decay of a Family . The basic requirement for honesty was the freedom of the family and the right to use one's own coat of arms . "Honesty" as a general ethical-moral or legal-political characteristic of a person or group of people is also derived from it.
Linguistically, the attribute “respectable” has been preserved in today's joking statement that someone is an “honest citizen”, although the background of the former own class was lost.
Another form of honesty relates to the norms of behavior within society , or within guilds , where it stands in contrast to journeyman journeymen (the " foreign writers "). In this sense, means honesty actually the " respectability ". In the case of serious violations, the guilds were given an honorary penalty .
literature
- Otto K. Deutelmoser: The work of honor and other Württemberg elites. Hohenheim Verlag Stuttgart, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-89850-201-6
- Gabriele Haug-Moritz : The Württemberg respectability. Approaches to a bourgeois power elite of the early modern period. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-5513-5 .
- Berndt Hamm: Lazarus Spengler (1479–1534): the Nuremberg council clerk in the field of tension between humanism and Reformation, politics and faith . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-16-148249-6 , p. 8–17 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Hansmartin Decker-Hauff : The emergence of the old Württemberg honesty. Dissertation, Vienna 1946
Web links
- Gert Egle: Württemberg at the time of Carl Eugen (1728–1793): Prince and Land - The dualism of rule and land in Württemberg. In: teachSam education server. Own website, July 8, 2012, accessed on February 17, 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Hamm, p. 17
- ↑ See Hamm p. 14
- ↑ Werner Birkenmaier: Mentality of the Württemberger. Swabian honesty. Stuttgarter Zeitung , March 17, 2016, p. 1 f. , accessed on September 3, 2017 .
- ↑ See Hamm, p. 13 f.